She laughed. “Nice try. I haven’t seen any cows.”
“That’s because they’re about a half mile up from here. Our ranch hand is in Albuquerque right now, and someone needs to look in on them.” He couldn’t help himself; he took in her messed hair, her dirty shirt and pants, and her heels, and chuckled again.
“Okay,” she said, folding her arms. “What’s so funny now?”
“You are. You’re a wreck.”
She looked down at herself and smiled sheepishly. “Well, I didn’t get the memo that today was cleaning day.” She glanced up at him; there was a soft flush in her cheeks. “Nothing goes according to plan around here.”
“That’s the mountains for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, the mountains,” she said with dubious playfulness. She moved away from him, brushing off her pants. She paused next to a box of things on the hood of his mother’s Pontiac. The box looked new in that it was not covered with the grime of car parts or dust. There were some picture frames peeking out the top. Madeline leaned over and peered in. So did Luke. The box held bathroom items, like a flat iron, bottles of shampoo, soap, and tampons. But no furniture polish.
Madeline removed one of the pictures from the box and squinted at it. “Is that Libby?”
Luke glanced at the framed photo. It was Libby all right, around the age of twelve or so. She was standing on an oval hooked rug, and on the wall behind her, he could see someone’s baby pictures. “That’s her.”
“Who is she with?” Madeline asked, and Luke looked a little closer at the man sitting in the easy chair behind her, smiling up at her. He’d only met Grant Tyler a couple of times, but he would know him anywhere. He was a striking man—tall, black haired, and blue-eyed. The photo was a bad one—a grainy resolution, faded colors. But that was Grant Tyler, smiling charmingly at his daughter. “That’s Grant,” he said.
He could feel the tension suddenly radiating off of Madeline. When he looked at her, he saw the color had bled from her face, and Luke suddenly realized what had happened. “Madeline… haven’t you ever seen a picture of him?”
She shook her head, her gaze locked on the picture. “Where was this taken?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” he said apologetically.
She stared at the picture. “They look happy, don’t they?” She returned the picture to the box. But she could not seem to take her eyes from the ghost of the man she never knew.
Luke wondered what that must be like, to be an adult and see a photo of a father for the first time. He felt for her, more than he wanted to feel. He should keep his distance from her, keep his head clear until the issue of the ranch was resolved, but he was having a lot of trouble doing that, obviously, and especially when he saw such vulnerability in her. He thought of what she’d said of her father last night, could see the look of bewilderment on her face now. It was heartwrenching.
He felt a sudden need to remove them both from this garage, from the box of Libby’s things, from that picture of her father, and away from his mother’s car. “Come on,” he said suddenly, grasping at something, anything, to take them from this garage. “Let’s go check on some cows.”
Madeline lifted blue, shining eyes to his. “How do you check on cows?”
“We drive or ride up the mountains to find them and check on them.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t know how to ride. And besides that, I really am still mad at you—the saving my life part notwithstanding,” she said, waving toward the wall.
He smiled.
“Don’t smile,” she warned him. “I don’t trust you, either.”
His smile only widened. “I know that, too. Come on. It will be fun.” He moved toward the open garage door, hoping she would follow.
“I think this is a bad idea,” she said. But followed him.
So did the dogs.
FOURTEEN
Madeline let it be known she was not thrilled that the dogs would be riding in the back of the Bronco, especially since the four of them insisted on hanging their heads over the front console next to her head. But she seemed to quickly forget them when Luke started up the bumpy road.
The Bronco still rocked the old logging roads. Luke didn’t hold back, either—when it came to the mountains, he was still a kid. Madeline held on with one hand pressed against the dash, the other clenching the overhead grip, and made little squeals of alarm when they hit a big hole or rock.
Halfway up, they encountered a tree that had fallen across the old logging road.
Madeline said, “Oh, well. I guess we need to go back.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Luke said. He got out, grabbed his dad’s old chainsaw, and demolished the section of the tree that covered the road. He returned to the driver’s seat with a good sweat and a smile.
“Wow,” Madeline said, a little wide-eyed. “That was impressive.”